Gateway FX Series, Worth it?

not a bad setup, spec wise, but personally I'm wary of Gateway after a few terrible experiences with their customer service (they more or less dump you on hold and hang up, typical late 1990's garbage, honestly if I'm spending nearly $2000, they better kiss my feet when I call and ask for my warranty to be honored, and there are other manufacturers who will do just that, for the same money, so why not?)


I'd probably suggest HP or Alienware, HP has a lot of nice X58 based setups with i5's or i7's and plenty of comparable features ($1700 isn't a super killer price, basically), and Alienware has similar cosmetics, better hardware, costs a bit more though (and you get that lovely Dell warranty :), the reason I didn't mention Dell is because I'm not sure tbh if they have something with the Dell brand on it thats competitive with Pavilion Elite or Alienware boxes (Alienware being part of Dell))
 
Thanks for the info, I will have to look into those a bit more. I don't know exactly how to build my own desktop which is why I am interested in purchasing one already made. I am unaware of how effective websites like ibuypower are as well which is why I am trying to stick to companies who I have seen around.
 
I am not going to be getting a gateway again. I got one of their first amazingly good deal FX laptops with the 8800GTS mobile and all that back in Jan 08' I think. I had to send it in once for screen repair that took about a month. And later on I had to send it back again to have the CPU fan replaced (it was grinding). After my computer was gone for a month at the repair center, I called and asked what was going on. They kept giving me the run around for two or so weeks till I was finally offered a DOWNGRADE. I refused it and they later called back that day with a pretty big upgrade of a laptop. I accepted and waited a week till I called back once more. They told me "oh we don't have that anymore actually." So after waiting almost 2.5 months, I got my original laptop back that only needed to have the CPU fan replaced. Like I said...never getting a gateway again. Just saying.

That said, I would go with a different manufacture that has a better turn around time on repairs.
 
nterr0r said:
Thanks for the info, I will have to look into those a bit more. I don't know exactly how to build my own desktop which is why I am interested in purchasing one already made. I am unaware of how effective websites like ibuypower are as well which is why I am trying to stick to companies who I have seen around.
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nothing at all wrong with buying a prebuilt, not everyone is a DIY kind of person :)

I would avoid sites like ibuypower like the plague, they use substandard hardware and slap machines together with no real attention to detail, and their warranty service is dodgy at best (A few searches should reveal some horror stories for you), you're making a good choice in going with known brands, but as I said, and as the poster below has commented on, Gateway has terrible customer service

Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Alienware, Voodoo, and Falcon Northwest all produce very solid computers (so does Apple, theres a different board for Apple though, might want to poke around there a bit if you're interested)

check this out (you have to play with the custom configurator to get a legitimate price quote, Alienware boxes are generally bespoke (or as close to bespoke as you can get)):
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/alienware-aurora?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

I would stick with the stock i7 920, I would only upgrade to the larger PSU if you're going with multiple gfx adapters, get whatever warranty suits you (available up to four years if you really want, I wouldn't suggest much more than a 2 year warranty, 3 is a gamble (at 3 years if it eats it, a new computer would make more sense, unless cashflow is an issue, however the ~$500 you'll spend on that warranty could very likely cover enough parts to get you up and running 3 years from now, but 1-2 years is entirely respectable))

the 3GB included memory is alright, touch it up to 6GB 1333Mhz and call it a day if you're a heavy multitasker

with 6GB of memory, advanced 1 yr warranty, 21.5" Alienware monitor (which is a bit expensive, but I figure, hey, let it match), and a Radeon 5770 (which should have no issues with that monitor's resolution with everything but the absolutely most demanding games (bit late to ask, but: what games do you play? this does make a difference in what you should buy)), it comes to $1697, I know you're thinking "oh the Gateway has all these better specs", but stop consider:

- Much more than 6GB of memory is worthless unless you're a GIS or CAD professional (and if anyone has some other large exception, y'all probably already know about it and have what you need to deal with it)
- That $1700 includes a somewhat expensive monitor
- Its from Alienware, which means the price is a bit higher just for the name recognition
- Its got a very solid warranty behind it, unlike Gateway
- It has a Core i7 9-- series processor

if you went and did a config similar to this from HP or Dell, the price would probably come down quite a bit, buy a monitor off newegg or something for $150 and you'll drop the price even further (you could even get two for the price of that Alienware monitor))

if you have more questions, really, feel free to ask


Ihaveworms said:
I am not going to be getting a gateway again. I got one of their first amazingly good deal FX laptops with the 8800GTS mobile and all that back in Jan 08' I think. I had to send it in once for screen repair that took about a month. And later on I had to send it back again to have the CPU fan replaced (it was grinding). After my computer was gone for a month at the repair center, I called and asked what was going on. They kept giving me the run around for two or so weeks till I was finally offered a DOWNGRADE. I refused it and they later called back that day with a pretty big upgrade of a laptop. I accepted and waited a week till I called back once more. They told me "oh we don't have that anymore actually." So after waiting almost 2.5 months, I got my original laptop back that only needed to have the CPU fan replaced. Like I said...never getting a gateway again. Just saying.

That said, I would go with a different manufacture that has a better turn around time on repairs.
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yet another gateway horror story, and sadly they really do not care about end-user support, this has become the stock standard norm for their dealings with customers, regardless of your user level (consumer, business, etc); I stay away for a reason
 
I'd go with the ASUS G models. My G50 does nice.
 
Hmm, I appreciate the response and the offer to help obobski. I'm going to look into the computer you mentioned and do some research on the topic a bit more. If I have any questions though, I won't hesitate to ask and also, I'd like to thank you for the help you have offered.

There must be a site that compares models effectively, isn't there?
 
My vote if you have to go prebuilt is the Asus. Alienware is too expensive, Gateway doesn't offer much of an upgrade path (no O/C at all IIRC)
 
Ihaveworms said:
I am not going to be getting a gateway again. I got one of their first amazingly good deal FX laptops with the 8800GTS mobile and all that back in Jan 08' I think. I had to send it in once for screen repair that took about a month. And later on I had to send it back again to have the CPU fan replaced (it was grinding). After my computer was gone for a month at the repair center, I called and asked what was going on. They kept giving me the run around for two or so weeks till I was finally offered a DOWNGRADE. I refused it and they later called back that day with a pretty big upgrade of a laptop. I accepted and waited a week till I called back once more. They told me "oh we don't have that anymore actually." So after waiting almost 2.5 months, I got my original laptop back that only needed to have the CPU fan replaced. Like I said...never getting a gateway again. Just saying.

That said, I would go with a different manufacture that has a better turn around time on repairs.
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Just FYI, the Gateway FX laptops are incredibly easy to service yourself. You can get any possible part you could ever need on ebay. I had a Gatway P-6831FX and a screen replacement is seriously one of the easiest things I've ever done on a laptop. These laptops are really sought after for their upgradeability and mod-friendliness.

I understand if you're not comfortable opening up a laptop or potentially voiding a warantee (not that the warantee seems to be good for anything if Gateway's service is what you say it is), but seriously, to fix the CPU fan is like $10 and 30 minutes of work, tops. The thing is located right under a door on the bottom of the laptop and is held down by a few screws. If it was the GPU fan, that's a little harder to get at, but 100% possible. Do it yourself next time ;)

SeaFoam said:
My vote if you have to go prebuilt is the Asus. Alienware is too expensive, Gateway doesn't offer much of an upgrade path (no O/C at all IIRC)
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Asus +1
 
I currently own a Gateway FX Laptop. I think the build quality on these are trash. From day one I've had graphics card issues. The power brick buzzes pretty loudly. The CD/DVD Rom also broke and I was unable to send it in for warranty because I was deployed. Gateway didn't care. So I ended up buying a new disc drive for it and replacing it myself.

Also for what my specs are my games seem to run like trash. I play heroes of newerth windowed and its pretty choppy.

I'll never buy a Gateway again.
 
Thanks for the advice from steering clear of Gateway, seems like quite a bit of people have their own horror story to share regarding the company.

As for Asus, many of you seem to be bumping it, any suggestions on Asus rigs ?
 
wow

you guys are really dump trucking on Gateway. I've had a 7811-FX since Oct 2008 and have never had a problem with it. It's been my goal to have it last at least 2-3 years, and it's about halfway there. I guess my experience must be an exception but I'm guessing it isn't, because the only time you hear people speak up about prebuilts is to complain, why would anybody want to post a positive experience.


oh wait . . . see what I did there?

FWIW, I would second going with the Asus, or an Alienware (especially that new m11x, which is cheap but very very good and compact, read the hardwareheaven review) but no matter what manufacter you go with, they will ALL have their problems and issues, if you go to notebookreview's forums, they have a forum dedicated to every laptop manufacter, if you browse it, you will see that every manufacter has issues, nobody's perfect when it comes to laptops.

Also as an alternative, if you want a prebuilt, xoticpc is a good place to buy from judging by all the happy people over on the NB forums.

If you really want to know more about laptops, that's the place to go. Good luck.
 
Fail said:
wow

you guys are really dump trucking on Gateway. I've had a 7811-FX since Oct 2008 and have never had a problem with it. It's been my goal to have it last at least 2-3 years, and it's about halfway there. I guess my experience must be an exception but I'm guessing it isn't, because the only time you hear people speak up about prebuilts is to complain, why would anybody want to post a positive experience.


oh wait . . . see what I did there?

FWIW, I would second going with the Asus, or an Alienware (especially that new m11x, which is cheap but very very good and compact, read the hardwareheaven review) but no matter what manufacter you go with, they will ALL have their problems and issues, if you go to notebookreview's forums, they have a forum dedicated to every laptop manufacter, if you browse it, you will see that every manufacter has issues, nobody's perfect when it comes to laptops.

Also as an alternative, if you want a prebuilt, xoticpc is a good place to buy from judging by all the happy people over on the NB forums.

If you really want to know more about laptops, that's the place to go. Good luck.
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please don't post just to flame in a quasi-moralistic way that you're a very unique exception to a company that has probably the worst customer service on the market just for the sake of "I have to be right and show everyone else" - wasting OPM isn't a good thing imho; sure all brands have problems, difference is how they're resolved - notice how nobody in this thread has said Gateway's are the only computer that breaks, what they have said is that when a Gateway does break, the company outright refuses to do anything about it (whereas Dell, Alienware, Asus (a very good suggestion, honestly I didn't think of it (...yes, even in spite of owning an Asus laptop :eek:)), or HP will actually provide decent to excellent service and support for their products)

honestly its fine if you have to be right/make a point about how everyone is evil and only wants to complain and blah blah blah, do it with your own money

as far as comparisons between different manufacturers, I like c|net and Maximum PC personally, or just doing some "by hand" comparisons
 
obobski said:
please don't post just to flame in a quasi-moralistic way that you're a very unique exception to a company that has probably the worst customer service on the market just for the sake of "I have to be right and show everyone else" - wasting OPM isn't a good thing imho; sure all brands have problems, difference is how they're resolved - notice how nobody in this thread has said Gateway's are the only computer that breaks, what they have said is that when a Gateway does break, the company outright refuses to do anything about it (whereas Dell, Alienware, Asus (a very good suggestion, honestly I didn't think of it (...yes, even in spite of owning an Asus laptop :eek:)), or HP will actually provide decent to excellent service and support for their products)

honestly its fine if you have to be right/make a point about how everyone is evil and only wants to complain and blah blah blah, do it with your own money

as far as comparisons between different manufacturers, I like c|net and Maximum PC personally, or just doing some "by hand" comparisons
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I never had a problem with my Gateway 6831FX laptop, ever. Not one. And I changed the CPU twice, put in a Blu-Ray drive, swapped the screen, added raid 0 ssds, upgraded the ram, and did some other cooling mods. I thought it was a great machine.

But my waranty was so void it was absurd. :D As I said before, if you can build your own rig, you can repair anything on one of the FX laptops. Dells are generally easy to work with too. I don't have much experience with other brands though.
 
ordovician said:
I never had a problem with my Gateway 6831FX laptop, ever. Not one. And I changed the CPU twice, put in a Blu-Ray drive, swapped the screen, added raid 0 ssds, upgraded the ram, and did some other cooling mods. I thought it was a great machine.

But my waranty was so void it was absurd. :D As I said before, if you can build your own rig, you can repair anything on one of the FX laptops. Dells are generally easy to work with too. I don't have much experience with other brands though.
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any computer is easy to work on if you have the knowledge/experience, and nobody is debating that Gateway uses standardized hardware thats the same as everyone else's (Dell, HP, etc)

what IS being said, is that their customer service/support is non-existant crap, and honestly if you're gonna spend the money for it, it better do something

wave your hands all about and say "no it doesn't matter I maintain it myself and can build my own" all you like, but its still wasted money on a support contract thats never going to be honored - and the point here isn't "just build your own", its which pre-built is the best overall package

we're comparing more or less identical (or nearly identical) systems, the key difference is warranty/customer service, why skimp out just for the sake of argument, really?
 
I purchsed the Gateway FX6831-03 desktop 2 weeks ago. I am very impressed with the case and the simple plug and play setup. I had up to this point been building my PCs, only other prebuilt was an IBM PS/1 back in 1993. The 5850 and i7 850 are plenty powerful and drive my games well on my Gateway 24" lcd. The system is whisper quiet, in fact my external HDD is louder.

Also remember more people will complain about a computer, meaning there are that many more who have nothing but good experiences. The new series of desktops is a great refreseh. Their last year's model had been long in the tooth for a few years already in design.

This desktop has a FSP power supply, ATI direct video card and the rest unbranded most likely foxconn motherboard and samsung ram. Boots up in under a min (ready to use) and shuts down in less then 5 seconds.

The one thing you might want to throw in is an SSD as the HDD is now the lowest score on the windows experience index. In addition the case has two removable hdd trays for sata, which will make my next hdd addition easy.

For the price, get the FX6831-01, which is 8gb ram for $1299 as opposed to my 16gb of ram and blu-ray drive for $1699. If you just want to plug, power and play then I don't believe you can go wrong on this model. Sure you can worry yourself over "if" it will be a bad apple, but you won't know till you try. The effort to me was worth it.

rka4c1.jpg
 
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ordovician said:
Just FYI, the Gateway FX laptops are incredibly easy to service yourself. You can get any possible part you could ever need on ebay. I had a Gatway P-6831FX and a screen replacement is seriously one of the easiest things I've ever done on a laptop. These laptops are really sought after for their upgradeability and mod-friendliness.

I understand if you're not comfortable opening up a laptop or potentially voiding a warantee (not that the warantee seems to be good for anything if Gateway's service is what you say it is), but seriously, to fix the CPU fan is like $10 and 30 minutes of work, tops. The thing is located right under a door on the bottom of the laptop and is held down by a few screws. If it was the GPU fan, that's a little harder to get at, but 100% possible. Do it yourself next time ;)
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Oh I did want to do it myself. I opened the laptop up, got the model number of the fan and looked around on the internet. The model fan that kept showing up was slightly different from mine and would not fit. I called them and asked if they could just send me the fan, but they wouldn't. Sending it to them was my last resort.
 
Ihaveworms said:
Oh I did want to do it myself. I opened the laptop up, got the model number of the fan and looked around on the internet. The model fan that kept showing up was slightly different from mine and would not fit. I called them and asked if they could just send me the fan, but they wouldn't. Sending it to them was my last resort.
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That seriously sucks, man. :(
 
Ihaveworms said:
Oh I did want to do it myself. I opened the laptop up, got the model number of the fan and looked around on the internet. The model fan that kept showing up was slightly different from mine and would not fit. I called them and asked if they could just send me the fan, but they wouldn't. Sending it to them was my last resort.
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ordovician said:
That seriously sucks, man. :(
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the above is my point (And theres apparently no point in trying to explain that, because people just HAVE TO FLAME ME that "oh no i have a gateway it works you're wrong it turned on so you obviously don't know"), the hardware is of decent quality, they just outright refuse to support it; if you're going to buy a pre-built the company should at least stand behind their hardware

but of course we should totally ignore that, and ignore that the complaints about them are CONSISTENT (it isn't just "oh mine died they're evil", its consistently "they refuse to support/assist me with damaged hardware/etc") because obviously any negative comment is just total bullshit and people are trying to "hurt" little old gateway

really, I'm done trying to help here, nobody even seems to want to try and understand the point being made, so flame on, waste OPM, who cares
 
Where is my above post was I flaming you? I am just stating what happened to me.
 
Ihaveworms said:
Where is my above post was I flaming you? I am just stating what happened to me.
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yes, and I wasn't saying you were flaming me
the people responding saying "no gateway is jut getting dumped on/being bullied they're fine I own one it powers on it works nothing is wrong" are, they insist theres no issue at all and nobody has the right to complain for two reasons:

A) all of the complaints don't matter because it represents a supposed minority
B) all of the complaints don't matter because they have working hardware

nowhere has anyone insisted its non-working hardware, but it seems that theres no intention of understanding other dimensions of a product other than, it plugs in and turns on right now, for example what (if any) actions the provider will do to satisfy the end user

in the case of gateway, there is very little on the customer service/post-sales side to talk about, if the product works fine thats good, but IF the product has an issue (And this *is* the minority of users) it would be good to know that the manufacturer has you covered, in the case of Dell for example, this is the case

a minority of Dell users have technical issues with their hardware, and Dell works to take care of those users

Gateway does not seem to really care about its customers after they've made a purchase, evidenced by stories like yours and many others, hence why I suggested to the OP to consider another brand

however it would appear the sole factor that matters to the majority of posters in this thread is "i paid money, i expect a box in the mail, if i can open that box and plug my new toy in everything is perfect"; if that is the case, Gateway or anyone else is just fine (because anything less than that would more or less constitute fraud, at least in the US) - I'm simply demanding more for my money and assuming others would as well, and I'm trying to provide advice as to how to get that
 
obobski said:
please don't post just to flame in a quasi-moralistic way that you're a very unique exception to a company that has probably the worst customer service on the market just for the sake of "I have to be right and show everyone else" - wasting OPM isn't a good thing imho; sure all brands have problems, difference is how they're resolved - notice how nobody in this thread has said Gateway's are the only computer that breaks, what they have said is that when a Gateway does break, the company outright refuses to do anything about it (whereas Dell, Alienware, Asus (a very good suggestion, honestly I didn't think of it (...yes, even in spite of owning an Asus laptop :eek:)), or HP will actually provide decent to excellent service and support for their products)

honestly its fine if you have to be right/make a point about how everyone is evil and only wants to complain and blah blah blah, do it with your own money

as far as comparisons between different manufacturers, I like c|net and Maximum PC personally, or just doing some "by hand" comparisons
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congratulations Plutarch, I had no idea that morals had anything to do with PC hardware
but congratulations nonetheless, I fail to see how posting about a positive experierence and going on to offer useful information and guidance on how to obtain more pertinent information consists of flaming, but if you really feel it's flaming, why not simply report my post and let our fine moderators sort it out.
 
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Fail said:
congratulations Plutarch, I had no idea that morals had anything to do with PC hardware
but congratulations nonetheless, I fail to see how posting about a positive experierence and going on to offer useful information and guidance on how to obtain more pertinent information consists of flaming, but if you really feel it's flaming, why not simply report my post and let our fine moderators sort it out.
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my point is, as I've stated a couple of times
positive experiences aren't possible, but the consistent problems that users experience don't seem to be going away; thats bad

perhaps my choice of words was somewhat, blunt; I do apologize
 
My friend your post still needs some editing, your choice of words is still poor. People speaking of a positive experience have every bit a valid opinion as those who speak of having a negative one. Since this is a forum, and we're all members, we're all entitled to contribute our opinions and comments on whatever the topic is. Seeing as I actually own a Gateway FX laptop, I can speak from personal experience on this matter. I have not had to test Gateway customer support, which is good, after all if you have to contact customer support it's likely because something went wrong, yes? With everything being correct on my end and their end, I can offer no complaints. But as I've said before, I seconded the opinion that other manufacters might offer a better quality of product in the laptop department, based on my research, but I also offered the forewarning that no manufacter is perfect, and as such, there will be people who receive products that are less than satisfactory, even from a manufacter with a sterling reputation. That's just the nature of the realm of technology.

If you find dissatisfaction, announce it, if you find satisfaction, by all means, announce that as well, after all why not? If your money paid for it, then you have as much of a valid opinion as anyone. As for positive and negative experiences, is it not better to offer two sides of the same coin rather than have a blanket cast over the issue, smothering the other side with it? Better two voices, one for, one against, than simply one for or against, otherwise, how can an informed opinion be reached?

Shame on you, for trying to disquiet others.
 
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obobski said:
my point is, as I've stated a couple of times
positive experiences aren't possible, but the consistent problems that users experience don't seem to be going away; thats bad

perhaps my choice of words was somewhat, blunt; I do apologize
Click to expand...

Can you rephrase that in english please?
 
BTW, since when does Dell have good customer service? I've been dealing with them for years and their service is comeplete and utter garbage.
 
Neurorelay said:
I purchsed the Gateway FX6831-03 desktop 2 weeks ago. I am very impressed with the case and the simple plug and play setup. I had up to this point been building my PCs, only other prebuilt was an IBM PS/1 back in 1993. The 5850 and i7 850 are plenty powerful and drive my games well on my Gateway 24" lcd. The system is whisper quiet, in fact my external HDD is louder.

Also remember more people will complain about a computer, meaning there are that many more who have nothing but good experiences. The new series of desktops is a great refreseh. Their last year's model had been long in the tooth for a few years already in design.

This desktop has a FSP power supply, ATI direct video card and the rest unbranded most likely foxconn motherboard and samsung ram. Boots up in under a min (ready to use) and shuts down in less then 5 seconds.

The one thing you might want to throw in is an SSD as the HDD is now the lowest score on the windows experience index. In addition the case has two removable hdd trays for sata, which will make my next hdd addition easy.

For the price, get the FX6831-01, which is 8gb ram for $1299 as opposed to my 16gb of ram and blu-ray drive for $1699. If you just want to plug, power and play then I don't believe you can go wrong on this model. Sure you can worry yourself over "if" it will be a bad apple, but you won't know till you try. The effort to me was worth it.

rka4c1.jpg
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Thanks for your comments on the new FX6831 series. I'm glad you've had good experiences so far. I've ordered the FX6831-01 before finding many comments on it, so yours really helps.
However I have 3 questions about your system, assuming the 01 and 03 have the same motherboard and packaging

I was wondering what PCI slots were available? The only image of the motherboard I saw was at Newegg and it showed only one PCI-E x1 slot in addition to the x16 the ATI card is in. Does the the video card take more than one spot for its slot?
According to the specs, there is supposed to be 1 PCI-Ex16 (used by video card), 1 PCI-Ex4 and 2 PCI-E x1 slots. Basically I wanna know if there is space to add an internal wireless or additional network adapter?

My second question is about what you mentioned about the HDD having the lowest Windows score. At 1.5 TB what could it possibly be measuring? Is it suggesting that 7200rpm is a bottleneck to your system?

And my last question is about the pre-loaded Windows 7. How much bloatware did you have to deal with and is an actual Windows 7 DVD inlcuded?

Again thanks for your contribution, and I look forward to hearing from you. :)
 
Had the time to look over some of the comments under the thread. Sorry for starting such a heated debate, hope you guys were able to resolve your issues.

As for the computer, I am still deciding on what to get, many of you have made valid points. If more people have suggestions, do post your thoughts.
 
Fail said:
well what are you looking for?
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Well if you look at the initial question
Was wondering what you guys think of the new Gateway FX series for a gaming rig.
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I personally think the FX6831-01 is awsome for the price, especially if you can get it discounted, for ex. its 1229.99 at BuyDig.com with Free Shipping plus a $38 rebate if you access BuyDig from Bing.com's Cashback link. Mine came to $1192 and change total. With the specs you should be able to play all the latest games within the highest settings without over clocking. I suppose the most impressive component included is the video card. The HD5850 is one of ATI's Top 3 high-end video cards, and its my understanding that they can be overlocked to out perform the 5870.

The 03 model on the other hand I question the extra $400. 16 GB of ram is impractical for a gaming rig. Even for a serious multi-tasker. And the extra optical drive is pointless in my opinion. Why do I need a DVD drive plus a Bluray/DVD drive. I'd rather just have one or the other. Other than those 2 things the 03 model is exactly the same as the 01.

Intel Core i7-860 processor 2.8GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 3.46GHz
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel H57 Express Chipset
8 / 16 (03 model) GB DDR3 Dual-Channel 1333MHz Memory
ATI Radeon HD5850 Graphics Card with 1GB of Discrete Video Memory
1.5TB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
16X DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti Drive + Bluray/DVD+/-/RW Drive (03 Model)
15-in-1 Multi Digital Media Card Reader
10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)
High-Definition Audio with 7.1-channel Audio Support
10 - USB 2.0 Ports (4 Front, 6 Rear)
2 - eSATA Ports
1 - IEEE 1394a Port
Gateway Multimedia Keyboard and Optical Mouse
High performance, black glossy design with trendy red accents and lighting effects
 
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i did, but i'm asking what he's looking for in a PC or laptop
 
Tj-Max seemed to cover what I was looking for originally. Thanks for all the input =]
 
Just to add to this. I've recieved the PC yesterday, and I'm very satisfied with it so far. It booted up with no problems and it is extremely quiet. In a completely quiet room the PC is only barley audible from about a foot away.
Its Windows scores are all above 7.0 ecxept the hard drive which provides a base score of 5.9, not a big deal since 7200rpm is fast enough, and remember its 1.5 Terabyte!!! I remember when a 500 Megabyte drive was instane.

Heres some info you may not know yet.

The Mainboard is branded as Gateway H57M01, I can't find any info on it though. But you'll have 1 x4 PCI-E and 1 X1 PCI-E slot availible. The pictures at Newegg are misleading. The CPU multiplier is not accessible.

The Ram used is branded Samsung.

There are 6 red lights that glow around the case. And you do have the option to turn them off by turning the power button instead of pressing it.

The included ATI HD5850 can be overclocked from 725mhz to 950mhz, and the voltage can also be adjusted.

Does not come with speakers as seen in most pictures. But does include USB Keyboard and Mouse.
The cord for the keyboard was too short to reach the PC below my desk. I had to use a USB extension cable. The mouse cord is longer and reached just fine.
 
Sorry for getting back to your questions so late. Yep, no real expansion available in terms of slots for cards. But I actually quite enjoy the onboard sound and when I use usb headphones the system sound is just fine. Right now I am downloading in utorrent, watching a video and surfing no issues. Your comment is dead on about 16gb ram, I never use more then 7gb, but I paid for the "I have it" factor. How did you overclock past the Overdrive limits in CCC? I turn off the red lights since I like a dark room when computing. I do believe that 5.9 is as high as anyone is going to get unless using SSD. I didn't see alot of bloatware and any that existed I ran msconfig and add/remove programs. Performance has again reached a plateau where prebuilt is just as fast as BYO unless you benchmark enough to notice. Last time I experienced this was around 2000. I shall hypothesize that every 10 years prebuilts such as Dell and Gateway get the price/performance combo right, lol!
 
I have alot of Gateway computers, from FX desktop to 2 FX laptops, 1 is a 17" my wife uses and I have a 15" I use as a HTPC , also a Gateway netbook my wife drags around with her to work or her parents house. Gave my dad my old Gateway desktop and it works fine. I have a Gateway 23" lcd I use everyday. So, I myself have been looking to update to a new pc and I have been looking at that new Gateway, not the $1700 one with Bluray but the other one, the $1400 one. I have read good reviews on it, some mixed but most I would say 8 out of 10 are good reviews.

I can honestly say I have had no " major " problems with my Gateways at all. Till this day I play my 2 year old FX and it eats up any game I throw at it. I upgraded the power supply to a 750W and put in a EVGA 260 card, that was 2 years ago! I will be looking foward to playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 on it next week.

I'm just holding back on buying the new Gateway because of the economy and I'm just looking for a better deal on it. They sold out of them at my local MicroCenter store. I would buy another Gateway in a heartbeat.
 
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I've noticed a lot more Gateway FX laptops being sold over different FS forums lately..
 
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